


The Beautiful Vagabonds

by tree



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, The Wild Swans, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 08:02:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tree/pseuds/tree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beautiful Vagabonds

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Baranduin in the 2007 Yuletide Challenge. Title quote by John Burroughs, from Birds and Poets:  
> 
>
>> The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life.... The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds — how many human aspirations are realised in their free, holiday-lives — and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!

It took Eliza many months to recover from her imprisonment and the wild fight to save her brothers. One by one they came to her to say goodbye, to leave the kingdom and begin their stolen lives anew. One by one they gave her their thanks and their love and promised her that if she ever needed them, they would return. Only her youngest, her one-winged brother remained.

The Archbishop came to her chambers to bow low before her with apologies honeyed and profuse. Eliza forgave him because of the purity of her heart, though she knew she would never trust him. The King, too, came before her daily. He brought her sweetmeats and flowers from the palace gardens, and once a beautiful singing bird in a golden cage. The creature made her so sad that, when the King had retired, she opened the cage and watched as it flew away.

Eliza spent many hours with her youngest brother, sharing tales of the lives they had lived whilst apart. He told her of his life as a swan, of how he had flown with their brothers above the waves, their wings strong and white. He told her of the glorious freedom he had felt being at one with the sky, soaring on warm uprisings of air. In return, Eliza told him of living in the forest with the leaves and the sunlight as her playmates. She told him of the longing she had felt in the days and nights spent watching for the wild swans to come back to her from over the sea.

They clung to each other as they wept, Eliza cocooned in a soft, bright warmth by her brother's wing.

"I am sorry," she told him as she stroked the feathers.

"Do not be, Little One," he reassured her. "This way I will always be reminded of the joy of flight and also of the love of the sister who saved us."

*

As winter slowly passed into spring, Eliza walked in the walled gardens of the castle and spoke to her brother of leaving the kingdom.

"But where will we go?" he asked. "Surely you do not wish to return to our father's kingdom."

"No," she replied. "But neither can I stay here. The King is very kind and I do care for him, but I cannot forget his betrayal."

"He loves you," said her brother.

"Does he? Who am I to him? It is only my beauty he loves. What will be left when that fades?" She plucked a rose from a nearby bush and allowed its scent to soothe her. "I feel that I do not belong anywhere now," she said softly. "I long only to feel the wind rushing about me and the spray of salt on my face."

Her brother watched her now, his eyes intent. "What is it you wish, Eliza?"

"Once I prayed for a way to break the enchantment our step-mother had placed upon you and our brothers. I dreamed an answer to my prayer. Perhaps if I offer up my prayers once more, I will receive the answer to another question."

Crouching low before her on the stone bench, her brother took both of her hands. "You must be very sure, my dear sister, that you wish this to be your fate. I could not bear to see you unhappy."

"I do wish it," Eliza told him, with a steady voice. She turned her hands in his so that their fingers were entwined. "And you, brother? What do you wish?"

"I wish to be free again in the golden sunlight and the star-spotted blackness of night, to be taken by the wind anywhere it pleases."

Brother and sister smiled at each other in the weak winter light, united by blood and fervent desire.

*

For three nights Eliza prayed, and on the third night her prayers were answered. Once more she dreamt of the fairy who was like the old woman in the wood. "We are come full circle," she said. "You have proven your courage and perseverance through the power of your actions. Now, only this remains. Take hold of the thorny stem of a rose so that it cuts your palm. Your brother should do the same. Press your hands together and as the blood mingles, you shall both be set free. But know this: once this transformation has taken place, it will be complete and can never be undone. Never again will you walk the world as a woman."

With those words in her mind, Eliza woke. In the first light of dawn she stole to her brother's room and woke him. He knew at once that she had dreamed. Together, they entered the garden, the stones cold against their bare feet. In silence, Eliza grasped the largest branch of the rosebush and let the thorns pierce her skin.

"Now you," she said, and watched the blood well up around her brother's fingers. He turned to face her.

"You are sure?"

Eliza nodded and stepped forward to grasp his wounded hand with her own. They watched the mingled blood drip from their clasped fingers to form a shallow pool by their feet. They breathed together softly and she felt the rush of life pump between their hands for several heartbeats..

A tingling moved its way up her arm and across her shoulders. With widened eyes she looked at her brother and saw a similar awareness in his own.

"Is this how it happened before?" she asked.

"No," he shook his head. "The last change was all at once. We had no time even to cry out."

The tingling became an itching across her back and chest like fiery sparks. She both felt it in her body and saw its echo in her brother as the changes began. The hands they were holding lost their fingers and elongated. Feathers sprouted in great tufts along both of her arms and the human arm of her brother. One blood-red feather nestled amidst the white.

Pain shot through Eliza's temples and down her spine. Her legs curled up beneath her as she sank to the ground. For a moment she was blind and choked with panic. Then her vision cleared and before her where her brother had been stood a swan. Looking down at her own body, she saw feathers and down, the whitest shining white. With a tentative sweep, she tested her wings a beat, and then another, stronger. A heady feeling of power rose within her and, with a triumphant cry, flung herself into the sky. She sensed, rather than saw, her brother rising behind her until he came along side and they flew wingtip to wingtip across the kingdom.

There was no sorrow in her heart, no regret. This first, pure act of freedom tasted luscious as a ripe peach. Below them, the human world shrank into insignificance. Ahead was the horizon and the glorious blue of the sea.

Exaltation leapt in Eliza's breast as she lead her brother in flight. Together they winged into a new day and the farthest reaches of the sky.


End file.
